


touch my tears with your lips (touch my world with your fingertips)

by h0neybeebear



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, implied/referenced eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-07-09 18:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19892353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0neybeebear/pseuds/h0neybeebear
Summary: Ann hovered beside her, quaking like a leaf in a sharp breeze. Like the fragile foliage, she might break to winter's chill, and then all of the harsh cold and unforgiving white of snow would cave in upon her. What Anne would not give to turn and clasp her wounds, yet her own were so deep.(The death of Aunt Anne brings the Ann(e)s tumultuous yet happy marriage to a sudden turning point. Where Anne was once fearful of how her wife would ultimately take the passing of their most beloved relative, she is now suddenly faced with the possibility of whether their relationship will ever recover at all.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the real life event of Aunt Anne's death in 1836 after which the Ann(e)s were both in mourning for a year. In my research I discovered that the typical time spent mourning an aunt or uncle was only three weeks and that a year of mourning was reserved for a wife or husband so you can imagine how devastated they both were by her passing. While this is based in real life everything else written is completely fiction, and has all been created in an attempt to understand the very real problems their relationship suffered in later years and to just try to soothe the ache that that understanding creates. 
> 
> Title lovingly taken from Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever"

_October, 1836_

The sky was grey, the dirt and gravel already cold and hard beneath the carriage wheels. Winter was arriving early, and the morning October air held a sharp chill which cut past the frail, trembling windows. 

She was white against the unusual black, her arms like chilled marble, though her face not as statuesque. Statues did not cry. They did not sob and fill their lovers ears with anguish too great to bear. 

Anne watched her wife past burning, aching lids, noting each tremble of her mouth and furrowing of her brow. God, she was so white. 

Lifting a hand to her mouth, Anne discreetly masked the pain that twisted upon her lips in an evident quiver. To break now would be to break them both. 

Casting her gaze towards the window, she swallowed down the tears as surely as she had swallowed down her meager breakfast of milk and bread. Ann had refused to touch it, and Anne wanted it even less than she, though for appearance's sake she took her meal in hopes that it would inspire some hunger in her wife. It hadn't. 

The carriage rocked and jerked beneath them as they passed over the hill which lead to Halifax, and Ann flinched. She grabbed the edge of the seat to steady herself, and Anne watched a quick tear cut down her cheek, beneath the veil. She had not worn a veil for their marriage, yet she could -must - wear one now on this day. 

Anne ached to move, to be free of this confinement of dread and grief, yet she remained still in the seat just watching. Watching her wife fall apart. Watching her life slip away. 

* * *

The stained glass windows of the church held little color, shimmering only darkly against the flickering candles that wavered like weeping teardrops in each corner. 

For once the room matched her, black and somber.

The choir sang a hymn. O Thou in Whose Presence.

Anne stared steadily downwards, her gloved hands clutched together in front of her to still their tremble. 

Ann hovered beside her, quaking like a leaf in a sharp breeze. Like the fragile foliage, she might break to winter's chill, and then all of the harsh cold and unforgiving white of snow would cave in upon her. What Anne would not give to turn and clasp her wounds, yet her own were so deep.

The choir hushed, and the House of God fell silent, save for the footsteps of the minister upon the pulpit.

"We gather here today to remember a beautiful soul," The minister spoke into the utter quiet, shattering any delusion that she might've been only dreaming. "Mrs. Anne Lister."

A ragged sob interrupted the minister's words, catching Anne's heart in near fatal seize of pain. Beside her, Ann was crumbling, one pale hand clutching the back of the pew, the other quaking over her mouth. 

"Oh, Aunt…" She groaned as a whisper washed across the church.

Then, in a plume of black, she collapsed.

* * *

"Ann, you must find some fortitude." 

Her rough whispered tone echoed against the stone walls of the church's lower hall behind the rectory. She paced, her heart churching a desperate pace in her chest. She felt as though she were barely clinging to sanity. 

"I... I'm sorry…." Her wife's paper thin voice scratched against her ears with the sharp touch of guilt. 

Her tone was much too harsh. Her gaze held frustration rather than understanding. Her movements were rushed, bleeding irritation rather than concern. Anne was acutely aware of how her actions affected Ann even when she was as delicate as she thought she could manage. 

"No." She paused, pressing her eyes. "I'm sorry."

Silence enveloped them for a long moment. 

"You wish I wasn't here." Ann whispered at last, her eyes glazing over beneath the veil as she stared off at the window. 

"That's not true."

Ann pursed her lips together, shaking her head slowly. "It is."

"You think I'd rather be alone?" Anne demanded, her teeth gritted. 

"No, I just… Perhaps, it would be better."

Ann's watery eyes finally flicked towards her with the familiar sadness, the insurmountable despair that so often gripped her with ideas of her own worthlessness.

"Stop this." Anne ordered softly, breaking from her place and closing the distance between them.

Grasping Ann's arms, she tried to gentle her touch as she stared downwards, fighting tears. 

"I embarrass you." Ann continued, her voice breaking. "I do not have the status you wish for."

Anne's jaw ground and she strove not to let her fingers do the same around Ann's fragile flesh. 

"That's not what today is about." She managed to reply, her tone bordering somewhere between despair and frustration. 

How did always come around to this?

"Just admit it." Ann whispered, dipping her pale hands beneath the veil to clasp her face. 

"I will not." Anne replied, forcing her gaze towards Ann's hidden visage. "We will not have this discussion."

"Be rid of me." She moaned into her palms. "Be rid of this burden."

Frustration flared deeper in Anne's chest, and her teeth ached against each other as she fought with all the wavering tatters of her self control to overcome the resentment filling her chest. 

"Ann, listen to me." She insisted, her voice thick and strangled. "I want you beside me today. You loved my aunt as well anyone. You-"

"You despise me!" Ann burst out, tearing her hands from her face, and her cheeks were suddenly flushed, eyes wild.

Anne stared at her, speechless, emotions broiling inside her chest with brutal strength. Anger, despair, heartache, and frustration. She felt weary with it.

"You want to be free of me." Ann pressed, frantically, a tear slipping down her cheek. "I know it's true."

Reckless anger burst past the exhaustion in her veins. After all that she had done for Ann, the girl still refused to believe her and their relationship for what it was. She had saved her from a sad and lonely existence only to be met with crisis at every turn, and here, on a day when they should not think of themselves but for Aunt's deceased soul, she employed the most manipulative tactics.

Her fingers seized around Ann's shoulders, and she shook her suddenly, jarring a cry from Ann's lips.

"You're going to stop this, Ann, right now." She demanded, her voice rising sharply against the walls of the church, echoing back to her with devastating cruelty. "You are being ridiculous and childish! I will not have it!"

Ann began to sob before the rebuke had even ended, crumpling once more beneath her grasp. She could speak no longer as she sank, her dress scraping against the brick behind her. 

Immediate regret came like an icy flood across the fire in Anne's chest as she watched her love huddle on the floor at her feet. With her hands empty of her, she felt empty in her heart. 

"Oh…" The air expelled from her lungs, and tears burned sharply in her eyes. "Ann… I….My God, I'm sorry."

Her gaze bounced between her outstretched hands, the ones that had bruised and shaken the girl at her feet, and the tears were quick to overflow upon her cheeks. 

She had not yet even cried for her poor aunt. 

She dropped to her knees in front of Ann's trembling figure, her palms seeking to find some place to touch her where she would not hurt her as she had just done. Finally, she settled her hand along Ann's neck, the only stretch of skin uncovered. She squeezed slowly as she attempted to wring the words from her throat. 

"Ann, forgive me." She whispered, tasting the salt of bitter tears upon her lips. 

Her fingers trembled as she found the edge of the veil, and pulled it away from Ann's tear streaked face. Biting the finger of her glove, she tore it off in order to touch Ann's cheek uninhibited by cloth and stitching. As she cupped her wet, flushed face she leaned in to press her forehead to Ann's.

"Forgive me…" She repeated, pressing her eyes shut against hot tears.

Ann whimpered and sniffled quietly. She did not draw back from her hand although she did not incline herself closer either.

For a long moment they did not move. When at last Anne drew back, and urged them to rise, they neither spoke nor glanced into each other's eyes. 

Ann covered her face with the veil once more, and slipped out of Anne's fingers, leaving her bereft and aching as she flitted towards the graveyard like a ghost.

* * *

The parishioners had gone, the condolences spoken and lost in the cold, wintery air. 

Standing at the foot of the grave, Anne watched the dirt fall swiftly upon the cedar below. There was a tempo to the thrust of the shovel into the mound of earth followed by the wood meeting the dirt and gravel. 

Her travel journal was poised in one hand, her pen in the other. Her place of solace bore few words for the moment as she could hardly bear to think of writing this day into existence. Events had never seemed intrinsically wound into her life until they were created upon parchment, holding the power for her to read and remember for years to come. If not recorded moments could slip away from time and memory.

 _I do not wish this moment to exist._ She thought, pressing her eyes shut. _Yet not to write would be not to honor her. Would I let her fade from this world for my own selfishness?_

Releasing a slow breath, she opened her eyes, pressed her pen against the page and began to write, detailing her time of rising, of breakfast, and of arriving at the church. She slowed as she reached the final passage, the present moment in time.

Glancing up at the grave, she watched the two men pack the final shovelfuls of dirt onto the plot, and a tear slipped from her eye. Adjusting her grip on the pen, she glanced down at the page, and the teardrop of grief blotted over the last words she etched therupon. 

_She was always good and kind to me. None will ever think so highly of me. None was more interested in my interest. None._

* * *

“I think Father and I shall return to Market Weighton.” 

Marian’s musing was spoken over a silent dinner. Father was half asleep in his chair, his food half touched. Though he wouldn’t speak his grief, his discomfort was plain. Her sister, however, had hardly ceased to cry since the morning time, and Anne had grown sick of hearing the wailings. 

“Perhaps, that is for the best.” Anne murmured, turning her glass around slowly in one hand. 

“Shibden is all yours now.” Marian added, a tone of resentment hiding beneath the edge of tears.

Anne flicked her gaze towards her sister’s watery expression, her jaw tensing. It was of no surprise to her that Marian inserted this particular observation into the conversation, but it irked her still. 

“You imagine this is my first thought.” She replied in a husky whisper, pinning her narrowed gaze upon Marian. “You imagine I would gleefully claim my inheritance with Aunt barely cold in the ground?”

Her voice had risen, and Marian flinched, a tear quickly fleeing down her cheek. Father roused, his mouth curling as he glanced between his quarreling daughters, though he said nothing to interrupt.

“No.” Marian said, sharply, pushing her plate back and dashing the tear from her face. “I simply wish to be off before you do.”

“Be gone then.” Anne snapped, throwing her hand towards the door. “It is of little consequence to me whether you stay or whether you go. You-”

“Stop it!” Ann’s high-pitched, wavering voice shattered the snide remarks as she slammed her glass down on the table.

Anne started at the sudden outburst, having somewhat lost sight of the fact that her wife was sitting silently next to her, scarcely touching her food. Her gaze darted back and forth between Anne and Marian, tears in her eyes, mouth trembling as uncertain silence hovered over the dinner table for a moment. At last, Marian cleared her throat, and rose slowly from her chair.

“Excuse me.” She muttered, before rushing out of the room, her footsteps retreating towards the stairwell.

Anne watched her leave, her heart pounding in her chest.

Beside her, Father grunted in disapproval before sinking back down in the chair, his lids falling shut once more. To her right, Ann sat rigidly, tears streaking down her cheeks. 

_What a sorry lot._ Anne thought, standing abruptly.

Her chair screeched against the floor, and she threw her napkin onto the table, biting curses back from her lips. She strode out of the room, leaving Ann to stare at the vacant seats.

* * *

Anne stayed in her bath for over an hour, ruminating over the future. To dwell on the past and upon the frustrations that the day had presented would be of little help. If no one else would keep their head upon their shoulders she must. 

She focused upon her plans for Shibden until she heard Ann’s footsteps approach the doorway. She knocked quietly, and Anne sighed, leaning her head back against the edge of the bathtub.

“Come in.” She acquiesced at last.

The door creaked, and Ann entered silently, shutting them inside together. She hesitated, standing in front of the door. In the dim lighting of the candle, Anne could see the furrow of her brows. 

“What is it?” Anne asked at last. 

Ann shrugged, and pushed away from the door. She wandered closer, and Anne tilted her head to watch her, attempting to read her expression. When Ann drew nigh to the tub, she reached out and caught her wrist, gently.

“Ann…” She pressed, quietly. 

“We’re going to be alone here.” Ann said, her gaze fixed upon the wall behind them.

Dread twisted in Anne’s chest, and sat up slowly, the water sloshing around her.

“Yes.” She admitted, drawing her thumb over the back of Ann’s hand. “Is that so bad?”

Ann shrugged once more, her hand limp in Anne’s grasp.

“There was once a time where all you wanted was to be alone with me.” Anne added, her voice rough in her ears as she released Ann’s wrist, her chest aching dully. 

Running her fingers through her wet hair, she squeezed the water from the ends, desperately attempting to tamp down the emotion burgeoning in her chest. 

In some ways she had been prepared for the toll that Aunt’s death would bring upon her tender wife, but one could never fully anticipate Ann’s emotions and turns of melancholy. She was unpredictable like the sea, understood and constant at the surface, but deep and dark beneath with monsters abounding. 

Rising from the water, Anne felt the cold air touch her naked flesh with peculiar discomfort, and she reached for the towel Eugenie had left. 

“She was kind to me.” Ann murmured. “Your aunt.”

“Yes.” Anne replied curtly, wrapping the towel around her body, and stepping out of the water. “She was kind to all. She was a good person.”

“What shall we do without her?” Ann whispered, tears winding into her voice. 

Anne pressed her eyes shut, warding off the pain that would crush her chest. The burn in her eyes stung then slowly ebbed until she could open her lids and glance towards Ann’s trembling shoulders. 

“We shall go on.” She whispered, her throat tight and achy. “Together.”

“B-but…” Ann began to whimper, turning towards her, her face painted with devastation.

“Death is a part of life, Ann.” Anne insisted, reaching out to touch her cheek. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but she lived a good life. A full life. She was at peace.”

Ann stared at her for a moment, her expression slowly crumbling. Pulling away, she clasped her hand to her mouth, and rushed from the room before her sobs could fill the tiny room.

* * *

The candles were put out, and Shibden Hall had fallen dark and silent. 

Anne lay on her side, gazing into the blackness. Sleep would not come. She could scarcely close her eyes much less think of rest. 

She was alone.

She knew not where Ann had secluded herself, and she had not found the determination to search. If Ann wished to run away from her she would not stop her. She had never once in all their courtship or marriage forced her to remain by her side, and she would not do so now. 

She shifted in the bed, and settled once more, attempting to close her eyes. She knew the cost of a sleepless night because of her wife. They’d suffered many such rifts, and she had learnt not to bend herself to the baseless whimsys of Ann’s emotions. She would sleep, and in the morning she would speak with Ann, and remind her of their commitment.

Sighing deeply, Anne pressed her eyes closed, almost forcefully, and attempted to quiet the raging of her mind. She’d barely begun to succeed when she heard footsteps in the hall, followed by the turning of the door handle. 

She cracked her eyes open to watch Ann slip inside, the light of her candle flickering across the room and her strained expression. Closing her eyes once more, she listened to Ann’s movements as she came around the bed, slipped out of her pelisse, and blew out the candle. The bed shifted, and Ann crawled in next to her, her cold hands seeking beneath the covers for Anne’s body. She pressed against her, her face dipping between Anne’s shoulder blades and nuzzling there.

Anne clutched the pillow tighter, her heart tossed to and fro. Her affections would come now that they were in bed, when the light had been put out, and the cover of darkness would drown their deepest fears?

“Where’ve you been?” She asked, her husky tone shattering the silence.

She felt Ann tense, her breath warming her back in heavier exhales. 

“In the library,” She murmured at last. “...thinking of you.”

Anne sighed deeply, and reached down to take Ann’s hand from her side. Rolling over, she found Ann’s face in the dark, and pinned her with a narrowed gaze.

“You’ve left me half the night.” She pointed out, grasping her chin sharply. 

“I regret doing so.” Ann whimpered, grabbing Anne’s hip with one hand and curling her fingers around the front of her shift with the other. 

Anne stared at her through the dark, indecisive and conflicted. In her heart she wished for the intimacy of her wife, but in days such as these, it did not come without repercussions, and she was unprepared to deal with the aftermath. It might be much better to deny her now rather than to grapple with her episodes in the morning. 

“You are tired.” She murmured at last, the frustration seeping from her tone, and she leaned in to press a quick kiss to her forehead. “Your heart and your mind require rest.”

Ann whimpered, sinking into her mouth, then crushing herself against her chest. 

“Let me lay on you.” She pleaded, her hands trembling, clutched around the fabric of Anne’s shift. “Please, Anne…”

Anne swallowed hard, and sank onto her back. No, she would not deny her. She never could.

Ann snuggled closer to her, her cheek pressed to Anne’s chest, her leg winding between Anne’s thighs. Her arm was tight around her waist, and she clung to her as though for dear life itself, every inch of her trembling. 

Anne’s eyes at last fluttered shut of their own accord, though not for the anticipation of sleep. Her hand settled into her wife’s hair, winding into soft, golden locks, tightening at her nape as Ann’s hips quivered against her. 

She hesitated for a long moment, feeling quite frozen in indecision until the warmth and softness of Ann’s body, filled with tender need, ripped away from her all logic.

She reached her other hand down to touch her jaw, stroking her cheek slowly before drawing her thumb up and over her soft, plush lips until the seam of them parted, and her digit sank into the wetness of her mouth. A groan formed upon her lips, and she pressed her face down against Ann’s hair as she drew her thumb along the curling ridge of her tongue and felt her lips tighten with a suckle. 

“Ann…” She whispered roughly, and felt her press her closer, her thigh tucking tightly between Anne’s legs with exquisite friction. “Oh, Lord…”

She pulled her hand away suddenly, and rolled, pressing Ann onto her back. In the dark, their exhales were rushed and heavy, and the desire grew to a deep, aching need as their gazes glinted in the blackness of the night. 

“Anne…” Ann whispered, her voice choked. “I…”

Before she could finish her struggling plea Anne’s control gave way, and she ducked down to press her lips to Ann’s. The heat her tongue had offered Anne’s hand now readily accepting her lips, just as greedily, just as needy. Anne’s fingers were taut in her hair as she stroked her mouth open, and pressed her tongue inside while she plunged her other hand beneath the sheets to find the edge of her chemise. She dragged the material up over her hips, and Ann’s thighs readily fell open with eager heat emanating from betwixt. 

Dragging her hand upwards, Anne found her wet and wanting, and she could think of little reason to linger in teasing as she swirled two fingers between her puffy folds. Beneath her, Ann moaned, her hips urging up against Anne’s hand in a desperate plea. It was little more coaxing than she needed. Drawing back, she watched Ann’s face as she steadily sank her two fingers into her, felt her tighten around her invading digits. 

“Oh…” Ann moaned, her fingers scrabbling across the front of Anne’s shift as she was filled. “Oh, Anne… it aches…. It…” 

Her words were lost as Anne drew her fingers back and thrust into her again. Ann shuddered against her, gasping. Her feet were pressed into the mattress, holding herself steady as Anne fingers wetly moved in and out of her, each movement becoming rougher and more passionate. 

She wanted her to ache. She wanted her to feel the weight of her inside of her so that she could narily forget. It had been too long since she had reminded her. 

Sitting up, she tossed the sheets away, and sat back on her legs between Ann’s thighs. She took her knee in her palm and pressed her bent leg up, making her vulnerable to the touch of her hand. At this, Ann cried out, her fingers catching in the bed sheets as Anne resumed the thrusting of her hand. She split her open until Ann’s body could accept a third finger, and she wasted no time in claiming that space that she had created. Ann groaned as she pressed her ring finger into her until the gold band was pressed to her glistening opening, and she was throbbing for the ultimate fulfillment. 

“Oh, God…” Ann whimpered into the dark, her body seizing upon the impalement. 

“Come here.” Anne whispered, roughly, clutching her hip and pulling her closer until her buttocks were raised upon her thigh.

The motion seated her deeper upon Anne’s fingers, and she gasped once more as she held her there, unmoving for a moment as she let her feel it. She curled her fingers deliberately inside of her, and Ann arched against the bed, her blonde head tossing over the pillow. 

“Anne, please…” She panted, breathlessly, inclining her hips in a begging manner. 

Anne gazed down at her twisting, pale frame, and flexed her fingers around her hip, watched her struggle harder for it. In a way it was the cruelest she could be. 

_Do you love me still? Or do you love me for this?_ She wanted to scream the words, but she would not. She would hold them in their throat until they suffocated and died, robbed of the oxygen they needed to form life and grab hold of her.

Below her, Ann began to whimper and groan, frustration winding into her voice as her unfocused gaze finally flitted across Anne’s face. Their eyes met in the dark once more, but this time Anne could not hold that gaze. The tears were too plenteous in her eyes.

Thrusting forward, Anne finally complied to her moans, pressing deep into her aching body, and this time she did not stop. Ann’s voice shattered into cries of pleasure as the peak of climax rose steadily inside her, and her hands flailed for Anne, catching upon her shift and her braid of hair. She wanted to be held. 

Anne ducked her head, teeth clenched against sobs. She pressed her thumb down against Ann’s clit, and drew the moment to its end.

* * *

Her eyes were dry and burning when the sun rose upon her slumbering frame, and she felt scarcely rested when waking. 

The bed beside her was empty as it had been upon her first lying down the previous evening, almost as if their midnight passion had been some fevered dream.

She lingered long in the sheets, staring up at the ceiling. A familiar emptiness, a cavern of loneliness that she had not felt in many years was opening again inside her. This time, she could not flee home. She could not collapse to the gentle arms of her aunt, and tell her all the heartache. 

When at last she gathered what little strength she could scrape together she rose and called for Euengie. The maid, sensing her dark mood, was silent in assisting her in dressing. Standing before the mirror, Anne could hardly stand the sight of her reflection. 

“Dépêchez-vous." She ordered Eugenie as the maid fussed over the buttons of her waistcoat.

She tugged at her collar, loosening the cravat from against her aching throat before she batted Eugenie’s hands away and headed towards the door. She could not abide one more moment in the bedroom. Ann’s scent lingered with her, the memories too bold and too recent to eradicate so easily from her mind.

 _I will do better this morning to be persuasive and calming._ She thought as she jogged quickly down the stairs. _I will be charming and dutiful until she sees she has nothing to fear…_

As she reached the dining room, she called for Cordingley, and took her place at the table. Breakfast had already been set, and though it smelled deliciously of meat and butter, she could hardly find an appetite. She would take what was necessary to nourish herself and little more.

“Yes, ma’am.” Cordingley said as she entered the room.

Her expression was somewhat hesitant, but Anne paid no mind as she began to serve herself.

“Where is Miss Walker?” She asked, briskly. “I’d like her to take breakfast with me this morning. No excuses.”

“Oh…” Cordingley said, slowly, fidgeting in the doorway. “I’m sorry, ma’am…”

“What?” Anne asked, though her stomach was already sinking, her fingers cold despite the warm bread in her hand.

“Miss Walker…She…” Cordingley began haltingly. “She insisted I shan’t wake you.”

“Where is she, Elizabeth?” Anne cut her off, her heart pounding in her ears with fresh dread.

“She took her horse this morning.” Cordingley whispered, validating every fear that swarmed in her chest. “I’m sorry, ma’am… She’s gone to Crow Nest.”


	2. Chapter 2

The letter came from Crow Nest three days later, delivered by James a little after noon.

Anne was in the sitting room taking tea though her cup had grown somewhat cold as she lost sight of the time during her musings. She'd not had much excitement or fervor for her daily routines, and the house seemed more empty than ever she could remember. Her cheer was a strange and distinct concept, her stable nature quite broken and shattered if she could be honest.

She had let Ann be, let her hide at Crow Nest in hopes that with time she would come home to Shibden of her own accord. She would not be seen grovelling before her own wife or embarrass herself with begging for the end of the separation. It was Ann who would disgrace herself by returning to the place of her family and her virginity after she had vowed herself to Anne for life, and Anne refused to be shamed by it, at least publicly. In truth, however, she was horrified, devastated, and sickened by it. 

She had spent the first day lying abed. It had been a marvel how many hours she had managed to pass in tearful and angered repose before talking herself out of the languishing despair. The second day had been whiled away by meaningless chores while she nearly convinced herself that all was well, that Ann's absence would be short, and afterwards her repentance of it would soothe the hurt. 

Today, her foolish hope withered.

When Joseph entered the room, the letter in hand, her heart leapt in her chest. Perhaps, she had been right and all of her pitiful sobbing had been for nothing, she mused.

"A letter from Crow Nest, ma'am." Joseph said, extending the white, folded parchment towards her. 

She stared at the proffered letter for a moment, anticipation sharp in her veins before she quickly took it from him.

"Thank you, Joseph." She whispered as she swiped her finger beneath the corner and tore the wax away. 

Rising from the sofa, she paced towards the fireplace, her heart thumping in her ears as her eyes quickly galloped across the script within. 

_ Dear Anne, _

_ Please forgive my haste in setting off without proper goodbyes. I simply could not face you and for that I know I am wretched. I hope you would find some tenderness within your heart for me and visit me today. I remain in mourning but wish to see you. _

_ Sincerely and faithfully yours, A _

For a moment, she simply stared at the words within, her throat ever tightening to a painful knot.

At last, she lowered the letter, her fingers clutching tight around the paper as she resisted the urge to toss it into the flames. It was not what she had wished for, and perhaps far worse than what she had anticipated. 

The tone of the letter seemed to be that of common friends or of uncertain lovers. In a few short days and pitifully written sentences she had reduced them to their former status. This was not the behavior of a wife and certainly not a well-heeled one. 

Clenching her teeth, Anne folded the letter in measured movements, tucked it into her pocket, and turned sharply towards the doorway. 

"Joseph!" She called for the footman. "Have John prepare my horse. I'm going to Crow Nest."

* * *

Arriving at Crow Nest, Anne swung down from her steed before she had scarcely pulled him to a halt, and jogged up the front steps. She did not ring the bell, for the estate belonged as much to her as it did to Ann upon their union.

She strode inside, startling James in the other room when she slammed the door behind her. He rushed out to meet her with all the polite greetings he could manage before she swept her great coat off and shoved it into his arms.

"Where is she?" She demanded, glancing about the hall.

Her lungs ached from the exertion of riding from Shibden and charging into Crow Nest, and she felt desperately short of breath and of patience.

"Upstairs, ma'am." James answered, somewhat hesitantly, and she could only imagine what insinuations Ann had made upon her arrival.

"We're not to be disturbed." She ordered, tossing him her top hat as she strode towards the stairwell. "If she calls for you...do not come."

He stuttered for a moment, certainly a strange look on the typically composed man, but she did not care for protests. Ann would yield to her as her wife, and to no other person.

Taking the stairs quickly upwards, she marched towards the closed door, righteous indignation burning in her veins. She'd already had one hundred thoughts of what to say when she saw her wife again though she was uncertain which one would burst from her lips upon their greeting. She only knew that it would not be gentle. 

She grabbed the door handle, and the room where they had once so sweetly made love opened before with a nostalgia that she dared not embrace. 

With even greater, albeit dreadful familiarity, her eyes fell upon Ann, kneeled upon the floor, hands clasped in supplication. She was praying. Feverishly praying.

* * *

The stairs were blurry and tilting beneath her feet, and like some strange spectator to her own emotions, she heard herself breathing, heavy, raspy inhales that were too deep for the small bursts of oxygen they delivered. 

She scarcely made it to the bottom before her legs gave way, and she clutched the railing, sinking to the step as uncontrollable, halting sobs seized her throat. 

_ I cannot do this…not again... _ The thought pounded through her mind over and over again as she clasped her trembling hand to her mouth. 

Beneath her palm, her lips were twisted back from her teeth and the ragged points of them dug into her flesh as she strove not to let her cries be heard. She squeezed the railing in her other fist until the wood creaked and pinched her flesh, but all of her might could not contain the emotion obliterating her chest. 

She had shed many tears in the recent days gone by, but none such as this, none so deep and painful. She could not draw herself up, button away the grief. It spilled out of her like a river from a shattered dam, and it would not stop until it had flowed beyond her reach, and she was dry and spent. 

She knew James must have heard her, but he was gracious in the pretending of his unawareness, allowing her to suffer mercifully alone. 

At last, when she felt the tears slow, she pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it to her eyes and nose. Her head was thrumming in the wake of the violent emotion, and she sat there with the cloth over her face for a long moment, ashamed to lift her head. 

How in God's holy name did the girl do this to her? She'd come here, prepared to demand what right she had to send such a silly note and to ask what kind of wife she thought herself running off as she had. Instead, one glimpse of her, reduced to that fearful, penitent woman, had broken Anne to the point of her own bitter anguish. 

She sniffed hard, slowly dragging the handkerchief away. She leaned on her knees, her head sinking as she stared at the floor. She felt empty and hollowed out by her excessive sobbing though she wished it not to be. She would much rather be angry than be this whimpering, sad soul.

"Anne?" 

Her body tensed at the sound of Ann's voice, hesitant and tender, from the top of the stairs. 

"Are you all right?" Ann asked after a moment of silence.

Anne pressed her eyes shut as she listened to Ann's footsteps on the stairs. Before she could reach her, she girded her strength and forced herself up from the step.

"I'm fine." She whispered, swiping her hand through her mussed hair as she turned towards her.

Ann hesitated, halfway down the staircase, her brow furrowed, her eyes wide as she took in Anne's disheveled appearance. 

Anne regarded her in return, her frail frame covered only in her chemise, the barest attempts at modesty. Her hair was loose about her concerned, anxious expression, falling in tumbling waves past her shoulders. The light from the window illuminated the golden strands into a sort of halo, yet all of the sunlight in the world could not chase away the darkness from her eyes. For it was there the truth stood, the cold, devastating truth that she was no better than three days past, and that this impetuous, desperate trip would yield nothing but anguish.

Ann had not requested to see her in order to repent and return home, but only to soothe her own conscience. 

"I worried you wouldn't come." Ann whispered at last, her hands twisting in front of her. "And then I worried you'd be angry if you did, and then I would feel terribly, and I…. I don't know what I'm doing, Anne, I feel like nothing makes sense…. I…."

Her voice trailed away as Anne continued to stare up at her, guardedly. Her lips pursed, quick tears growing in her eyes, and she glanced downwards.

"You are angry." She whispered, hollowly.

"Is there a reason I shouldn't be?" Anne’s voice broke from her aching throat, quiet yet brittle.

Ann's throat bobbed, and she continued to stare down at her feet, her cheeks flushing pink. 

"You joined yourself to me, Ann." Anne continued, motioning towards her in a sharp gesture. "You swore upon the Bible. You  _ promised _ me and God."

Ann glanced up at her quickly, a tear streaking down her cheek, her teeth biting over her trembling lower lip. 

"I know." She whimpered.

"Do you?" Anne insisted, and the railing creaked once more beneath her fingers. "I never wanted to see you as you were before Scotland ever again, and I assumed you wanted the same for yourself. Now, I find you here of your own accord, praying for forgiveness to the wrong person."

This time, Ann did not respond, but her hands were wringing together, pressing her knuckles white and bleeding her fingers red. Her chest rose and fell sharply  beneath the thin chemise, tears slipping down her cheeks and neck though she scarcely made a sound. 

"What must I do?" Anne demanded, tears stinging her own eyes. "To garner such faithfulness and loyalty from you?"

"You have it!" Ann burst out, her voice strangled with tears.

"I must disagree!" Anne replied, her voice cutting above Ann's desperate cry. "If I did we would not be standing here, going over the same old story!"

"Oh, god…" Ann moaned in misery, sinking suddenly to the stair, covering her face in her hands. 

Silence buzzed suddenly between them in the wake of their raised voices. Above, the grandfather clock ticked ominously in the hall, a dark reminder that each second passed, useless and wasted to this frivolity.

"You leave me while I mourn the greatest loss of my life." Anne whispered at last, staring at the top of her golden head. "Your courage is lacking as is your respect for me."

The words were brutal, and she felt them go from her tongue with all the sharpness of a blade, yet she could not see a shred of untruth in it. It pained her greatly to watch Ann collapse before her eyes, knowing that she had the strength to rise above it, but she could not bear both of their weaknesses together. 

"When you return to me -  _ if  _ you return to me - it will not be without consequence." Anne whispered, sharply before turning on the stair, and heading to the bottom. 

Her heart was heavy and she could not take another second inside the prison that Crow Nest had always been. That Ann willingly locked herself inside again was a mockery of all they had overcome and all that they had promised. 

"Anne, wait." Ann sobbed, fleeing down the steps after her, her blonde curls waving about her flushed, wet cheeks. 

She caught Anne's arm, and pressed herself close, pleading with her. 

"I only need a little more time, Anne, please." She cried, her fingers grasping at the front of Anne's waistcoat in desperation. 

Anne pressed her eyes closed, her jaw clenching. She could not touch her. She was sure it would break her and she would leave no better than she had upon their last kiss.

"Anne…" She whimpered, her fingers curling around the back of her neck. 

Pushing up on her toes, she nuzzled her dampened cheeks against hers, and Anne could hardly stand the contact. She wished to be free as she often did, and yet Ann held her heart in her trembling, little hands. 

She grabbed Ann's arms suddenly, and pulled her back, grappling with her self control. 

"Please… don't do that." She whispered, huskily, opening her watery eyes to gaze into Ann's wide, blue ones. "Not if you mean to continue this behavior."

Ann's brows furrowed tighter, her eyes welling up once more. 

"Do what you must." Ann whispered though she quaked with all symptoms of fear. "Punish me as you will."

Anne expelled a breath through her nose and released her, her hands trembling. 

"What would you expect of me to do?" She asked, huskily. "Whip you as one of the servants?"

"If that's what you desire."

Anne scoffed, off put by her outlandish, unsparing offers.

"No." She replied, her tone holding bitter sarcasm. "I would need to get a much bigger stick for that."

* * *

Two strange and silent evenings passed, Anne closing each night alone by the fire. She sat with her feet upon the stool and the woolen blanket over legs as she read passages from Aunt’s Bible. There were many sections marked in ink and Aunt Anne’s spidery writings etched in the margins. She took what comfort she could from the lingering wisdom, tracing her fingers over the letters. 

She felt a tear slip from her eye, and she quickly dashed it away, glancing over at the opposite chair. She wondered who she wished to see seated there, and immediately clenched her eyes shut at the image of Ann, a memory of her resting comfortably next to her, softly and sweetly singing a hymn. She was often shy about her voice, but in Anne’s presence, she had scarcely needed prodding before charming her with the gentle notes. 

_ Oh, that you would feel the safety of me now.  _ Anne thought as shaft bitterness splintered inside her chest.  _ Where there is no danger there is bravery, but when it is most needed you run with shame and cowardice. _

Closing the Bible sharply, she let her feet fall from the stool and tossed the blanket aside. 

She had ordered Ann not to write her again unless it was a letter of apology and compliance. She had entertained her once and she would not do it again, she’d sworn. 

As she marched up the stairs towards her cold, empty room, she only wished that letter would come sooner rather than later; for it would come in the fullness of time, she was certain. What life could Ann possibly lead without her? Alone at Crow Nest she would once more fall victim to her anxieties and hysteria until she was naught but a shell of her former self. Her fate would be not a pretty one, and Anne soothed herself with the thought that she had done all that she could for the girl. If she chose to return she would do so again.

Had she not fulfilled her duty as Ann’s spouse?

Her head ached with the thoughts, and as she reached her room, she did not bother to call for Eugenie. She undressed alone, and slipped between the sheets.

Putting out the candle, she stared up at the ceiling, restless and frustrated. 

_ Oh, that I were child again…  _ She briefly thought, her lids closing over distant, hot tears.  _ Oh, that I could lay upon Aunt’s bosom and there find all the happiness that I ever required. Oh, that this misery was gone from me… _

She rolled onto her side, and reached a hand across the sheets. Her fingers skimmed the cool, vacant fabric of Ann’s pillow, and she felt a tear slip across her nose. The pain was quick to come, sharp and cruel, and her fist tightened around the hand stitched patterns, her teeth clenching to the point of aching. Her own lack of courage and strength angered and disgusted her.

She had often found herself broken and shattered upon the rocks of heartache. Had she not yet formed some defense against it’s devious machinations? Had she not yet defeated this personal devil which taunted her when she thought herself victorious? 

_ No?...  _ She pondered bitterly. _ Perhaps then I am only a fool, and she has made of me even bigger of a fool within my own comforts and my own home.... _

Seething a slow breath through her teeth, she stiffly uncurled her fingers from the pillow, and twisted onto her back once more. 

In the silence and cover of the night, she let only a curse slip from between her trembling lips, and not the cries that so desperately wanted to come.

* * *

A light dusting of snow covered the recently turned earth before the headstone, and the crystallized particles glinted beneath the scant light which filtered past heavy, grey clouds above. The day had barely dawned, and already the sun fought for its place in the sky.

Anne had travelled alone to the church, slipping from the carriage to the graveyard with the hood of her cloak tugged low around her face. She would not be met with any acquaintance or condolence, for her time of mourning had not yet passed, nor would it soon be gone from her. Grief rested heavy in her chest, and she was certain the customary three weeks of ensconced mourning would not suffice for her dear aunt. 

As she tread across the courtyard, past drab headstones and wilting flowers, she clutched her aunt’s Bible tight in her hand. When she reached the final resting place, she stood there for a moment, awash again in shock and dread. It still did not seem so real. It seemed that in time she would awake from this nightmare only to be devastated again with the reality of the headstone before her and the mound of earth which now cradled her beloved aunt.

At last, she released a choked breath, and it billowed in a thick plume in the air. She dragged her gloved palm over her face and clutched her mouth as she stared down with a watery gaze. 

She wondered for a moment if it had been a mistake to return to so quickly, and she sank before the grave. Unconcerned with the dirt she might smear on her skirt, she slumped to the icy ground, and reached out her hand to touch the mound of earth. For a long moment, she could only squeeze the dirt in her hand, and swallow back burning tears.

At last, she sniffed, and opened the Bible with a trembling hand, turning it nearly to the end.

“Revelation 14:13.” She began, her voice thready and husky in the quiet graveyard. “And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them…”

The page blurred before her, and she lowered her forehead until it touched the page. 

A cold breeze rushed across the cemetery, cutting past the headstones to seize her in it’s icy clutch. She shuddered, and pushed her fingers into the mound again, sobbing aloud against the Bible, the parchment of which still held that lingering familiar scent. 

It mattered not how many comforting words she spoke loud, nor how many passages in these pages counseled her grieving heart. She only wished for her aunt to again be with her, to lay against her in the evening when the fire was warm and bright, to tell her of all that ailed her, and she in her kind way would have the perfect solutions. 

Instead, she stood here alone, betrayed and abandoned by all who had sworn to love her. She’d imagined she would not spend these weeks of mourning in solitary anguish, but the Lord in all His wisdom had seen fit to rip from her the only souls on this Earth who had ever truly understood her. One had gone from this life while the other may as well be out of her reaches, leaving her to wonder the purpose of the previous four years of her life. 

Lifting her head, she dragged the back of her hand over her mouth and nose, and gazed up at the sky. 

In the dark and stormy clouds, she found not God, but despair.

* * *

Tossing and turning between the sheets, Anne was restless, achingly alone. 

She had spent the majority of her life sleeping alone, having a bedmate for only a night or a week at the most before she was once more left to her own devices. Now, she realized, it had only taken little more than two years for her dependence upon Ann’s body next to her to grow into a requirement for peace and rest. 

A gnawing sense of discomfort and loneliness burrowed in her stomach. She desired her wife’s gentle touch, the comfort of her cradled next to her. Even in the dark, they knew each other’s bodies, seeking kisses blindly and finding the warm press of the other’s mouth, for it was here inside their bedroom that they could freely shower each other with affection, unburdened by society’s watchful eye. Perhaps, that was the reason she found it so painful, these evening hours, alone in their bed. 

She slipped onto her back once more, and stared up at the ceiling in the dark as the sensation of solitude grew unbearably in her mind, til she could think of nothing else. Nothing but Ann in her chemise, cuddled beside her, stealing her warmth, stealing her kisses. Nothing but Ann, squirming against her while she pretended sleep until she could scarcely resist her little wife. Nothing but Ann…

She kicked at the sheets, her breath loud and raspy in the dark. Her back was hot against the sheets, and she sighed in relief as she dragged her shift above her belly, baring herself to the cool, winter air. Dragging her feet up and into the mattress, she let her hand wander down against her hip, hesitating as felt the tug of desire between her legs.

Trembling, she lay in silence for a moment, wondering vaguely if she should resist these desperate urges. She had never once denied herself a moment of pleasure, but it was the moments after that concerned her, the ones where she could feel the emptiness even more acutely while her body still thrummed from the fleeting climax.

_ Hang it! _ She thought at last.  _ The girl has vexed me long enough. _

Sliding her fingers downwards, she followed the rise and fall of pubic bone before dipping into the moist, cleaved opening there. Swirling her fingertips through the wetness she had managed to arouse from herself, she pressed her eyes shut and brought her touch upwards to the swell of her clitoris. 

The pleasure was not as intense as she had hoped for, but she gritted her jaw, persisting with the hope that she could inspire her own orgasm. She’d done so many times, even when Ann lay next to her, slumbering and exhausted, unaware of her wife’s activities. Surely, her own deft abilities had not gone from her so quickly. 

She circled her clitoris, striving for the pleasure, but it remained hovering beneath the surface, recalcitrant and willful until the friction began to burn her flesh. A pant burst from her lips as she removed her hand, and pressed her fingers into her mouth for lubrication before rubbing forcefully between her thighs once more. She was trembling, her muscles aching, the sweat gathering between her shoulder blades and breasts, though more from exertion than pleasure. 

Frustration began to swell in her chest, and she re-adjusted her the position of her fingers several times to no avail.

At last, she’d pushed her shift back down, and turned on her side, staring into the dark. She refused to cry again, having spent her tears quite generously in the graveyard during her early morning pilgrimage to the church.

Nearly an hour later, rest had yet to befall her, and even the slightest inkling of sleep seemed far from her mind. Beyond the window pane, the heavy rain had begun to fall, but even the rhythmic sound would not lull her to sleep.

She groaned when she heard the wind rail harder against the side of the house, and one shutter rattle violently before suddenly giving way. A cold air blasted into her bedroom with the wailing of the storm, and she cursed, sitting up in the bed. 

Rolling over, she lit a candle, and threw back the sheets. The floor was icy beneath her feet, and she breathed another curse as she strode across the room. Flinching against the raindrops that whipped into the room, she grabbed the shutter and began to close it, only to halt when she saw a figure leading their horse in the back courtyard. 

“What in God’s name…?” She muttered, slamming the shutter closed.

She was in no mood to chase pesky trespassers, but she kept her rifle loaded in this room for these particular incidents.

Crossing the room, she grabbed her great coat and tugged it on over her shift before she snatched her rifle from against the wall. Propping the stock beneath her arm and the barrel over her forearm, she wrangled the door open, and holding the candle aloft, slipped out into the dark hallway. She quickly took the stairs down to the main floor, and marched towards the door that lead to the courtyard. Setting the candle down, she checked that the rifle was indeed loaded before she yanked the door open and brandished the weapon. 

She stepped out into the storm, flinching against quick, sharp raindrops as she placed her sights upon the intruder where he was half hidden behind his horse.

“You!” She bellowed across the courtyard.“Identify yourself or I’ll blow your head clean off!”

The horse and rider came to a halt, and Anne squinted past the rain as the figure stepped out slowly from behind the horse, pale and dressed in white like a ghost. The gaunt, frail creature was trembling and soaked to the bone, their thin chemise billowing about their naked legs and feet in rain.

She wondered for a moment if in her grief she had lost her mind, and saw now an apparition in her own courtyard.

“Identify yourself!” She repeated, her voice rising in trembling bravado above the storm as she adjusted her slippery grip on the rifle, tucking her cheek closer to the slick, cold wood.

The figure wavered, swaying in the wind, and Anne felt a dreadful wave of premonition wash over. Her heart chugged in her ears above the pounding rain, and she took another step forward.

She began to shout once more, voice trembling, "Iden-"

_ Crack! _

A flash of lightning burst across the sky followed by the crash of thunder, illuminating the courtyard in a blinding light for a short, sudden moment, but it took only that moment for Anne to recognize the person within the sights of her rifle.

The air left her lungs, and for a moment she could not even lower her weapon as she stared at the woman across from her.

She heard herself breathing huskily in her ears above the thrumming rain, then her voice breaking as she finally spoke. 

“Ann?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please be aware that this chapter references past self harm and Ann's possible ED

"Ann!" 

Anne heard her voice above the thundering rain, shattered this time by both earthly and spiritual devices as her wife's pale blue eyes gazed back her, shifting from translucent shades of azure to the dark, haunting pits as the lightning crashed to black once more. Within her eyes Anne witnessed the fear and trembling she’d seen that afternoon at Crow Nest, but it was not that which God had commanded. It was something else, something which crawled to life inside her and choked the vitality from her cheeks until she was this - this pale thing like the dead risen again.

All thoughts of her anger and bitter betrayal fled from her, and she was frozen in her mind as she was in her body as the violent memory of Ann's scarred wrist filled her mind. In time it had faded, yet it had never fully disappeared, and an icy shard of dread went through Anne's chest as she wondered if the pain that driven her to commit such a horrid act upon herself had never truly left her either.

She knew not when her thoughts commanded of her to move before she was running barefoot into the courtyard, her rifle gripped in both quaking hands, her greatcoat swirling about her. The rain pelted her face and exposed chest with frigid force, but she cared not. 

She only knew she had to reach her.

The sky split open once more as she grabbed the reins from Ann's hand and seized her by the neck with the other.

"Ann, for Christ's sake, what are you doing?" She demanded above the pounding rain.

Ann quaked beneath her hand, her entire body shuddering with the effects of the winter weather, and Anne wondered how long she'd stood beyond Shibden's gates, too terrified of the consequences that Anne had so strictly laid before her to find shelter within.

"Jesus Christ." Anne cursed once more, but it was a breathless sort of prayer, an oath she would aim upon herself, for her regret was so deep.

Ann blinked against the raindrops, uttering not a word as Anne stared at her, horror stricken. 

"Come with me." Anne demanded, huskily at last, pulling her closer. 

Wrapping her into her greatcoat, she felt Ann's cold, soaked chemise press into her side, and beneath her slight frame. She seemed much more frail than before.

_ Was she so thin the last I saw her?  _ Anne wondered, dread pining for life in her belly as she sheltered Ann across the courtyard.

With her arm around her waist, she could feel the sharp bones protruding through flesh. She felt like fine china, a simple rattle away from shattering beneath Anne's uncertain touch. 

She tied Ann’s horse to the railing beneath the awning before they stepped inside of Shibden. Anne closed the door behind them, shutting out the pounding rain so that it was a dull throb in the distance. 

In the dark hall, she could hear Ann's trembling exhales as shivered, and she quickly stripped off her coat in order to wrap it fully around her wife's quaking shoulders. 

"Ann." Anne attempted to address her again, cradling her face in her hands, urging her gaze to meet her own. "Are you all right, Ann?"

Ann blinked slowly, her eyes finally flicking towards her as though she had just noticed that she was not alone. Her lips quivered and parted, brow furrowing as if she intended to speak, but all that filled Anne's ears was the damning silence, punctuated by the raging storm beyond.

"Come." Anne whispered at last, drawing her close once more.

She assisted her up the staircase towards their bedroom, and once inside shut the door behind them.

She would not wake the servants. She would not have anyone but herself see her wife in such a fragile mental state. 

She lit a new candle before leading her to the armoire. Taking out a new chemise and a warm, lined pelisse, she set them aside on the bed.

In the silence, she could only hear the pounding of her own heart in tandem with the storm, and the sight of the bed where she had so recently attempted to find her own selfish pleasure only reinforced her dread. She'd no doubt touched herself while Ann had traversed the cold, unforgiving hills between Crow Nest and Shibden. 

She pressed her eyes shut for half a moment, unnerved by the emotion that rose so steadily in her chest. In other times she might've convinced herself that Ann was not her responsibility any longer after they way in which she'd absconded to Crow Nest, but her conscience would not let her think in such a manner. Rather, she felt the weight of her responsibility all the more heavily. Perhaps later they could argue the merits of Ann's hand in the separation, but in these cold, early hours of the morning she could only think of warming her life again.

She hesitantly removed the greatcoat from Ann's shoulders, and the light from the candle splayed across her body in angular shadows. 

__ _ Yes. _ Anne decided, a knot aching in her throat.  _ She hasn't been taking her meals after all. _

Attempting to breathe slowly and steadily, she laid the coat aside and stepped closer to her. 

"Let me take this off." She murmured, gathering the soaked material of the chemise at her legs and pulling it upward.

Ann hesitantly lifted her arms, allowing Anne to remove the cold, wet material from her body. She stood, trembling and naked, her fingers quaking at her sides, her shoulders drawn tight. In the dark, her pale flesh was as ghostly as Anne had imagined in the courtyard, and the shadowed divots of her ribs and collarbones frightened her as she wondered at how little care Ann had taken for herself in their separation. 

Her throat ached as she unfolded the new chemise and slipped it over Ann’s head and shoulders. 

“Put your arms through.” She directed her quietly, her voice husky around the growing lump of dread behind her tongue. 

She could scarcely look at her as Ann slowly followed her orders, awkwardly shifting one arm through and then the other. 

“There.” She murmured, smoothing her palms down Ann’s arms. “That’s better, hmm?”

She glanced up at Ann’s face, tears burning her eyes. In her grief and betrayal, she’d forgotten her own promises that she had made before God, and perhaps she’d done so deliberately in some subconscious way. Now, the consequences of such bitter retaliation were far greater than she had calculated late at night in the midst of her self righteous anger.

Sniffing sharply, she grabbed the pelisse and slipped it onto Ann's arms. Buttoning it over her chest, she hid the sight of her protruding ribs from her sight. 

"Let me take you before the fire." She offered quietly, rubbing her her arms slowly. "You'll feel much improved then."

Ann stared downwards, still as silent as the moment she'd entered the courtyard. Her wet curls were mussed and plastered against her cheeks and neck, and Anne reached up to smooth the tendrils as best she could manage without a brush. 

"Ann." She murmured as her fingers slipped beneath her jaw. "Ann, please... talk to me."

Ann's brows furrowed, and she ducked her chin lower, removing herself from Anne's grasp. 

Frustration kindled in Anne's chest, and she drew a deep breath. Despite all of her grief and repentance over how she had handled the matter, she wanted for some sign that Ann understood her part as well - that she had left Shibden, that she had refused to admit her fears, that she had run instead of hiding in Anne. 

"I'm certain you're fearful of my feelings at the moment." Anne said at last, attempting to soften her stiff tone though she was uncertain of whether she succeeded. "I only wish to remind you that refusing to tell me what is in your heart has only ever brought us grief and misunderstanding."

Ann slowly wrapped her arms around her waist, her only movement or indication that she'd heard Anne's words. 

"I would never wish us to be parted, Ann. Surely, you know that…" Anne whispered sharply, her eyes burning to life as readily as the ashes of her anger would. 

Her regret had been impetuous, surely, if Ann returned only to continue in her previous manner. 

"You wished it once." Ann's voice was fragile and tremulous and Anne's gaze snapped towards her. 

"What?"

"You thought it better I go to Inverness." Ann continued, her watery eyes meeting Anne's at last. 

"My God, Ann, I am not arguing a time that has passed well beyond us. Especially not one so -" She cut off sharply as tears prevented her from speaking further. 

She turned away, clasping her hand over her mouth. Swiping her palm upwards, she smeared away the tears, and pushed her hair back from her forehead as she stared off into the darkness of the room. 

"Why've you come then?" She whispered at last, unable to gaze upon her as she waited for her reply.

"I…" Ann began, her voice quickly fading like the tinkling of a small bell.

"What?" Anne demanded, her voice rising as she spun towards her. 

Ann stared at her, tears shining in her eyes. Her mouth trembled, but there came no explanation, to resolution to the questioned that haunted Anne's every waking thought. 

"I'm going to get Cordingley." She muttered at last, striding past her. 

She entered the hall, her heart pounding heavily in her chest with a churning sickness in her belly that could not be so easily cured by doctors or by any length of convalescence.

As she reached Cordingley's room, she swiped her hand across her face once more, and pounded on the door. 

"Cordingley, wake up." She snapped at the door with a second round of rousing knocking.

She heard the maid grousing before her footsteps preceded the door opening. 

"Miss Lister?" Cordingley asked, peering out into the hall with bleary eyes. "Do y'know the time, ma'am?"

"A little after three." Anne provided, ignoring Cordingley's sarcastic tone. "It's Miss Walker."

"Miss Walker?"

"Yes, she's in my quarters." Anne motioned towards the hall. "Please take her downstairs before the fire, and make her eat. I do not care the manner in which you do…. Just do it."

* * *

With only the flickering candle to light her way across the page, Anne scrawled quickly from left to right, numbers, letters, and symbols stretching into one another. 

She hadn’t yet written of Ann’s departure until this moment.

The words had stayed lodged inside her heart, like one of the trenches in lower fields that caught refuse and foliage until the water could not pass. The sudden, unsatisfactory reunification had stomped free her bitter resolve to hide the truth even from her own hand. At last, her emotions, her water in that backed up trench, was running free, wild and desperate to find it’s natural order once more. 

She'd only strayed from her trusted practice of throwing her words and heart upon the page in hopes that it would all be over so quickly that it would soon need no remembrance, but now she knew not else what to do but to admit her past week of misery, to recount every abhorrent detail, and pray that at the end she would find the correct path upon which to tread. 

She began from the start, Ann’s late night visit to their bed, the ensuing kiss of desperation that may have very well been their last. The tears sprung to her eyes as she spilled every thought and memory onto the page in excruciating detail, pilfering her mind for the smallest sensation. 

Her shoulders ached, perspiration beading at her hairline as she described the following days of absence, the torrents of grief and anger that came over her, the hope of the letter from Crow Nest followed by crushing realization that the incident was far from done. 

She paused as she reached the account of her ride to Crow Nest, and the image of Ann kneeling at her bedside filled her eyes with tears so great that she could scarcely see the parchment before her. She scraped her knuckles across her eyes, clenching her jaw against the urge to lay her head down and give up on this desperate confession. Her stomach was churning, but she swallowed down all thoughts of illness, and dipped her quill. 

She noted the date and time, and stilled the tremor in her hand as she began to write once more. Their exchange upon the staircase filled the page, burgeoning to life in jagged crypt. Finally free of her mind, the memory stared resolutely back at her, and she heard herself breathing unsteadily as her gaze followed the deeply etched ink. 

She closed her eyes, listening to heart thrumming in her ears. The taunting memories had finally stopped their dancing about her mind, retiring themselves in exhaustion to the page. Lying her forehead down against her arm, she embraced the silence, however temporary it would be. 

* * *

When at last Anne lifted her head, she found that two hours had slipped away from her. The candle had burnt itself down to half the height she’d begun with, and her ink had dried upon the page. 

Closing the journal with scarcely a glance at the most recent passage, she put it away in the drawer of the writing desk, and took up the candle. Her hand still ached with the labor of writing, and she prayed she’d not made her eyes too red with crying and sniveling. 

Going to Ann once more meant shouldering the burden of her own pain as well as Ann's just as it always had, and perhaps always would. Dr. Belcombe had once suggested that Ann could easily be cured, but as much as Anne trusted medical advice and the science that stood behind it, she suddenly realized that Steph was woefully ill-equipped to diagnose or treat her poor wife, and her hopes of seeing Ann whole in body and mind for the remainder of her life were but a dream. She'd committed herself to life of emotional sacrifice, and if she'd been any younger a woman she would've gotten herself out of such a scrape, just as she had with unfortunate matches like Isabella Norcliffe, Maria Barlow, or Vere Hobart. Nearly every woman she'd courted had come with her share of disadvantages and little to compensate for it, yet Ann had what none of them else had managed to attain - her heart. 

She left the room and padded down the hall to the stairwell. As she descended she heard Cordingley’s voice from the sitting room, and she quickened her pace. As she reached the main hall, Cordingley was exiting the sitting room, a bowl and cup in hand. Having not seen Anne in the dark, she started the sight of her.

“Oh!” She gasped, the bowl rattling in her hand as she drew up. “Oh, ma’am, I did not see you there.” 

“How is she?” Anne asked, glancing past Cordingley. 

Through the doorway she had slim line of sight into the sitting room, and she could make out the figure of Ann curled upon the sofa beneath a blanket.

“Ate all the soup I gave her.” Cordingley offered. “Not without some coaxing, but I think she wanted it more than she let on…. Poor thing.”

Anne clenched her jaw with a shake of her head. “No. She brought this on herself and with much more intention than-...”

She cut herself off as Cordingley’s brow furrowed, disagreement in her gaze. She would not speak it, but Anne had employed the maid long enough to understand her disapproving glances. 

“That will be all.” She said stiffly instead. “You may return to bed with my apologies for the intrusion.”

“It’s no trouble, ma’am.” Cordingley replied softly. “No trouble at all.”

“Of course.” Anne nodded, lifting her chin, resolutely, though despite all appearances, she felt the sting of Cordingley’s judgment far too deeply. 

Cordingley dipped her head, and began to pass on towards the kitchen, as respectful as always, and Anne glanced back at her, her heart strangely softening.

She felt rather hopeless with her own grappling attempts to understand all that passed between her and Ann in the previous week, and after all of her wailings in her study, she felt not so keen her typical irritation towards a disagreeing opinion. 

“Elizabeth.” She called quietly after the maid.

“Yes, ma’am?” Cordingley asked hesitantly, glancing back at her with a furrowed brow, almost as thought she expected the ensuing conversation.

“Why…” Anne whispered, motioning towards the sitting room before clutching her hands in front of her. “Why did she do it?”

“Ma’am…” Cordingely began, glancing back towards the sitting room. "I don't think I can answer that…"

“Why would any woman leave her…-” Anne continued desperately before realized the path her question took.

She cut off, swallowing the words she truly wished to say for something more societally proper. “Her home…”

“It’s hard to tell, ma’am.” Cordingley murmured, though something in eyes hinted that Anne’s subtext hadn't woven any mystery at all.

“Of course…” Anne nodded, lifting her chin, and waving her off. “Thank you, Cordingley, you may go.”

She’d turned towards the sitting room, preparing for one last attempt to knock some sense into the girl when Cordingley spoke.

“Just don’t be so hard on her, ma’am.” Her voice was hesitant as she dared to put forth her opposing opinion, but truthful all the same. 

“Why?” Anne asked quietly, staring at the woman, the love of her life, who seemed so far from her even in her own sitting room. 

“I once knew a woman who’s husband died.” Cordingley added after a moment. “She was much younger, in good health, but their love could’ve rivaled the greatest stories every told… Within months, she’d withered into nothin’. Then...she passed. Passed away of a broken heart I suppose…”

Anne glanced over her shoulder at the maid with a frown.

"A broken heart isn't a medical condition."

Cordingley didn't argue, but rather simply ducked her head and murmured, "Goodnight, ma'am."

Anne watched her disappear into the lower kitchen, musing over Cordingley's insinuations. When she turned her gaze back towards the sitting room, Ann's chin was pressed to her shoulder, her wide, watery eyes watching Anne despondently. 

Anne exhaled quickly, and approached the sitting room. As she entered, Ann tightened her arms around her knees, and set her mouth against one silently.

"Cordingley told me you ate your portion." Anne said quietly, easing down onto the sofa next to her. 

Ann gaze flicked towards the fire, her brow furrowing beneath the golden flames. 

"Inverness was a mistake." Anne said at last, hoping to gain her attention with the mention of their previous conversation. "On my part, but on yours as well, Ann. Just as I made the mistake of allowing you to remain at Crow Nest, but …"

She shook her head, clenching her jaw as the words burned bitterly at the back of her throat. 

" _ You _ left me, Ann." She continued, the pain winding into voice more deeply than she cared to admit. "What must I do? I came for you, and you would not return with me. You show up in the middle of the night, starving and chilled like a stray dog, and still you will not-" 

She cut off, realizing that in the silence her voice had risen to a cold, harsh tenor, and that Ann was trembling beneath the chill of it. 

She turned and leaned her elbows onto her knees, clasping her hands over her face as she struggled to regain her composure.

As desperately as she tried to understand Ann's actions and feelings she could not quell her own pain long enough to remain calm and understanding. Within moments of confronting Ann she was spiraling in grief once more, drowning in the blood that gushed from the broken pieces of her heart. 

_ Lord, give me strength.  _ She prayed, swiping her palms down her cheeks. 

She straightened, clutching her knees with trembling fingers as she glanced over at Ann. She remained still, her face turned ever towards the fire almost as though she fancied herself alone. Any words of apology were far from her pale, quivering lips, and Anne could see it clearly now. 

"I told you before..." Anne whispered huskily, rising stiffly from the sofa. 

She stepped into Ann's line of sight, grabbing her chin. Ann resisted her grip for half a moment before Anne tugged her face upwards, forcing their eyes to meet.

Ann stared back at her, a tear slipping quickly down her cheek, her lip quivering pathetically, but Anne would not have it.

"I told you this wouldn't be free of consequence." She whispered in a measured tone.

Ann whimpered, her chin sinking in Anne's palm until her forehead was pressed against her wrist. Still, she did not speak. 

Anne stared down at the top of her head, her chest aching, her exhales rushing unsteadily from her lips. 

Where were the days when Ann lay beside her, whispering her deepest thoughts and fears? Where was that trusting, open-hearted girl who unfolded to her like a flower beneath the sun? Had she too withered to this cold, dead winter?

Tearing her hand away, Anne staring at her quaking fingers for a moment before she turned and strode from the room before Ann could witness the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

She returned to the page, to her pen, to the only friend that was left to trust.

* * *

The sun rose from behind the clouds upon the dawn, warming Shibden in the wake of the raucous storm of the night.

It was perhaps the turn of the weather that seemed to awake Anne with a start. Beneath the covers, she found herself overheated for the first time in many days, her shift melded to her back, the wisps of her hair curled against her forehead. 

Her typical manner for the season had been to rise early and go before the fire before the cold seeped into her knees and pained her until dusk. As she slowly blinked against the sun, she realized that her body must’ve given up this routine. The height of the sun indicated that it was past eight at the very least.

She'd scarcely slept until the morning, remaining at her desk until her eyes were closing in the midst of her writings.

She rolled, her eyes still heavy as she groped for her watch on the side table. She found the little, ticking device, and sank onto her back as she flipped it open. Squinting against the sun, she noted the hands pointing closer towards 9 am, and lowered the watch with a sigh. 

“Mmmnnn…”

Anne started at the sound of the delicate sigh beside her, and sat halfway up in the bed, her heart pounding as she found the source of the sudden heat in her bed. She was curled onto her side, the blankets pulled over her face while her unruly blonde curls were splayed against the pillow, twinkling like threads of gold in the light, a beautiful picture of peace and warmth.

Ann.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be three chapters, but due to certain reasons (me being long-winded, overdramatic, and entirely too involved in this angsty story) there will now be four chapters. Expect the final chapter next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone, I wanted to thank y'all for your patience. I know this chapter has been slow on coming, and that's not how I planned it to be. However I had some personal irl things going on that prevented me from writing. I'm really glad I got to finish it tho and I really hope that you enjoy the final installment! :-)

For a long moment, she could not move. She could only stare at Ann, slumbering sweetly beside her as though she had never left, as if all their nights of separation had been but a fleeting nightmare. 

Oh, how she foolishly wished it to be so, but the truth was not so kind or romantic.

The longer she watched her wife sleep, the colder the chill that spread over the back of Anne’s neck, racing towards the base of her spine as she recalled Ann’s midnight homecoming and the subsequent hours of useless heartache and pining.

This was not how she had anticipated spending Ann’s first night back at Shibden. 

Perhaps in the beginning she had been too fanciful in her daydreams of their reconciliation. She’d given herself over to ridiculous imaginations that Ann would return, plead for her forgiveness, and that all would be right again. 

Ann’s arrival, however, did not hold even a modicum of her expectations, and instead she wondered why the girl had even bothered to share her bed. She certainly hadn’t had the disposition of repentance nor understanding of her errors. What use were her self-flaggations if she were not to comprehend the weight of her actions? 

Suddenly tossing back the covers, Anne leapt from the from the bed and paced to the window. She folded her arms, clenching her trembling hands into fists, and stared at the hills beyond. From her vantage point the world seemed warm and bright, but she knew the sun to be decieving. If she but opened the window she would feel the chill once more upon her flesh, reminding her that winter was far from abatement. 

She stood gazing at her land, for all that touched her eye was hers, but she felt no power in her sentiments. She felt no advantage in her money nor her status nor her position as Ann’s husband. All her courage and bravery were stripped and set aside, and she found herself at the mercy of the slumbering, fragile angel in her bed. How could it be so that all she’d once prided herself in was bland and futile if she could not have the happiness of her wife? 

She’d allowed her too close, offered her the privilege of understanding her much more deeply than ever she’d done for anyone else. 

_ Perhaps then I’ve erred to do so. _ She thought, at last turning from the window.

She dressed without glancing towards the bed, but when at last she buttoned the final button, she finally gathered the courage to look at her again. She’d shifted, and her soft lids and pale brows were within sight, her blonde lashes fluttering against her rosy cheeks.

The sight of her took Anne's breath from her lungs, drawing her close with inexplicable magnetism. She neared the beside, watching the gentle expansion of Ann’s ribs as she breathed, slow and calm, and she bent, extending a trembling hand to tuck back the blanket completely from her face. Her cherubic expression and the softness of her cheek against Anne’s knuckles clutched at Anne’s heart, begging her to turn her heart from her anger. 

She stroked her hair from her temple, slowly sinking to the edge of the bed as tears ached in her throat once more. 

She wanted desperately to be free of these emotions which weakened her so, and yet when Ann lay before her, quiet and peaceful, she was undone. Perhaps, she had been undone since the moment she'd laid eyes on her those years past, and she'd never had any chance at all of disentangling herself. So it appeared the same for Ann as she shared her bed once more. 

More and more it seemed that their separation had only been a squandering of the days that trailed behind them rather than a definitive beginning of an end, for it all came back round to this. Their best laid plans of escape disintegrated, and they found themselves here again, stumbling into one another, blind and disillusioned by their solitary lapses. 

"Well, we are well matched, aren't we, Miss Walker?" She whispered huskily, a bittersweet quip.

Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to Ann’s forehead, resting there for a long moment as she clung to the naive pleasure of Ann’s flesh against her mouth. Behind her lids, her eyes burned. 

At last, she pulled away, and turned, bracing her hands on her knees. She stared at the wall, praying for some inclination to stand and leave the room, but she could not think of a single motivation. The sitting room would be empty, the chair where Aunt once sat and read her Bible cold and vacant. Even her sister, who caused her so much irritation, had gone from her.

She felt the bed shift, indicating Ann stirring, and she straightened her shoulders quickly, immediately beginning to rise from the bed. She could not appear so forgiving so easily, surely.

She felt Ann’s fingers brush the back of her hand and curl about her wrist, seizing her with a fierce insistence. The simple contact, initiated after such lengths of barren isolation and painful longing, wrent her strength nearly from her grasp. She swayed for a moment, searching for a stern expression with which to guard herself before she turned, but when their eyes met Ann was staring up at her, and that gaze alone was enough to take her wits from her.

She struggled to maintain her grim demeanor, gazing down at Ann's white fingers clenched about the black cuff of her sleeve 

“I see your strength has returned.” Anne commented, her voice wobbling beneath the austere tone she’d donned. “You’ll still come down to breakfast. I won’t have you starving yourself in my own house.”

Ann scarcely flinched at her words as she continued to stare up at her, her gaze transfixed, and Anne began to wonder if she’d heard her rebuke at all.

“This is no way to grieve." She pressed onwards. "You must care for yourself. You must-”

“You’re going to die.” Ann’s trembling voice cut her off in the midst of her sentence, her clear blue eyes glistening beneath the sun.

Anne drew a deep, halting breath, unsettled by the observation, for it was not the first time she’d heard it. It took her back immediately to Ann's bedroom at Crow Nest, in the midst of the night as Ann tortured herself over her religious obsessions and self imposed guilt, but she had not and would not opt for false reassurances over frank honesty. Half the truth had never proved worth the while, and she could not be so careless with her choice of words at such a moment at this.

“Yes.” She murmured at last, measuring the tone carefully to soften the blow her words would make. “That is the eventuality of mortality.” 

At her brutally truthful reply, Ann stared at her for a moment, her complection growing ashen. Her mouth trembled, and she shoved Anne’s hand away. Turning onto her side, she yanked the covers over her face once more, and curled rigidly into herself. 

Anne stared at her back, the curve of her spine where each knob of her vertebrae pressed against the thin material of her chemise. She pressed her eyes shut, swallowed against the tightening in her throat. 

Despite having known the effect her statement would have, she simply could not stand another moment of silence. She could not take detailing yet another unfruitful disagreement within the pages of her journal. This ridiculous deadlock was going to end, even if she must force it with her own hand. 

"Ann, look me." She demanded, sinking to the bed next to her. "I've had enough."

Grabbing her arm, she pulled her onto her back, and grasped both her shoulders with a firm shake. 

"Look at me, Ann." She repeated. "Tell me what this is about."

Ann shook her head slowly, her mouth twisted with tears, her hair plastered against her wet cheeks.

"I can't…" She cried, her voice mutilated with despair. "You wouldn't understand."

"Yes I will." Anne insisted, reaching up to push her hair back from her cheek. "Isn't that what I have always promised you?"

"You'll think I am stupid and childish!" 

"And I shall love you anyways!" Anne insisted, grabbing her by both her cheeks. "I will not abide another second of this, Ann. We agreed this behavior would not go on should you come home. Now, tell me. Right here. Right now."

Ann stared up at her, tears and horror slipping down her cheeks and over Anne's fingers.

"Tell me." Anne coaxed, softening her tone as she stroked Ann's cheek. "You came to my bed. I know you want to. I can see it in your eyes…"

Ann nodded slowly, hesitantly at her words, her hands rising to weakly grasp Anne's wrists. Both relief and trepidation filled Anne's chest as Ann's refusal seemed to crumble into distraught tears.

"I…" She choked out, huskily, her eyes fluttering closed over pooling tears. "I don't want you to die."

"I know." Anne assured her, stroking her thumb beneath her eye to catch the falling drop.

"It's so horrible." Ann whispered, her voice trembling with fear. "This feeling. If it is even half of how I feel when you are gone… I shan't survive."

"Ann…" Anne whispered, her heart sinking. "I'm not going anywhere…"

"But you will." Ann insisted, her voice rising again in desperation. "God will take you from me, and then I will be alone just as I always am! Hasn't He punished me enough, Anne? My father, my mother, my dear John, your aunt, and you-"

"Ann, Ann…" Anne attempted to calm her despite dread in her chest at the realization of the familiarity of it all. "I'm not leaving you, Ann…"

"But you will, don't you see?" Ann cried, her pale fingers clutching the front of Anne's waistcoat. "You even said it… the eventuality of mortality…"

"Ann…" Anne whispered, lifting her head to look into her eyes. "Is this truly why you've left?"

"I…" Ann whimpered, her glassy eyes darting across her expression."I thought...perhaps you'd grown sick of me, that I'd used up all your patience-"

"Ann, no…."

"That  _ finally  _ you'd just be done with it! Done with me-"

"No…"

"Anne." She countered, her voice thickened with a sad sort of acceptance. "Please, don't treat me as a child with no understanding."

Anne stared back at her, her brow furrowing, curses lined up behind her lips. She'd scarcely allowed escape a word of any fleeting desire to be free of their union, but Ann had heard it all the same as though she had read a page from her staunchly guarded journals, as though she truly were an open book. 

“You were so far from me that night, and I just wanted to disappear." Ann whispered, tears welling against the pale backdrop of her miserable blue gaze. "When I left I thought…. At least I shall have the memory, the happy ones. I thought I could not stay to see you grow sick of me. I could live more happily knowing that you were free of me, indulging your own pleasures and desires… Alive somewhere in the world, than stay to see you hate me and then eventually-… I can't stand the thought of it, Anne. I wanted to go with you when you came, but I couldn't because then the whole thing would've been pointless, and oh…"

"Oh, Ann…" Anne whispered, lowering her head against her wife’s heaving chest as she listened to the convoluted thoughts descend into despair and tearfulness.

"Th-then last night. I couldn't take it anymore. I went to the balcony, and I stood there, and I thought it would be better if I died first because then I wouldn't have to ever live without you, and I…. I don't know, Anne, I don't know…." Her voice ended in reckless sobs as she spilled the length of the confession and the deep, utter hopelessness that had driven her. 

It struck Anne's heart like a knife through and through, and she gathered the quaking girl into her arms, rocking her tightly against her chest. The sympathy she felt was far deeper than she could remember in the previous years of tumultuous marriage, yet it spilled from her now as though it had all been waiting to be released, banging upon doors of resentment and misunderstanding. 

"Oh, my sweet Adney…" She whispered into her hair as Ann clung to her, muffling her cries into her chest. 

She felt each sob press against her bosom with fierce, visceral heat, burning through her flesh to the very heart of her. She felt suddenly the full force of Ann’s misery, imagined with tangible dread her hopelessness upon the Crow Nest balcony, and horrifying, morbid results that it might've spawned.

She clutched her tighter to her chest, wound her fingers into her hair, but it was scarcely close enough.

There was a distance which had yawned between them, and they’d barely begun to bridge the gap. This aching space betwixt their bodies and hearts screamed inside of her, desperate to be filled, to have her wholly again. She would not be satisfied until they were inexplicably bound, the fibers of their beings intertwined for eternity as she had intended that afternoon when they took the sacraments together beneath God's watchful eye.

Her fingers clenched around the locks of golden hair, and she tilted her head back upon her knee. She gazed down at her eyes, watery blue against bloodshot whites, upon her ruddy cheeks and flushed, swollen lips, and she could scarcely think of a sight more beautiful. She had traversed the world beyond, seen Paris and Versailles in all her glory, watched the sun rise upon the mounts of Switzerland, danced at the carnivals of Rome, and yet it was here inside her own shabby little room that she witnessed her most treasured sight of all. 

"Anne…" Ann whimpered.

She gazed up at her hesitantly, yet the longing was there in her eyes, just as surely as it rested in Anne's heart.

Anne's throat was tight as she bent, her mouth as soft as ever she could remember it. She pressed one gentle kiss to Ann’s neck, her eyes fluttering closed over stray tears as she felt the velvet of her pulse. She heard Ann give a breathless sigh, her fingers clutching at Anne’s forearm and elbow though her movements were scarce save for a tremble. It was, however, that tender quiver that travelled through Ann's abdomen, spreading across her limbs to her fingertips that caused Anne to yield instantly. 

With a moan, she crushed her closer to her chest, and her lips parted. She kissed her neck again, then again and again, forming a pattern along the curve of her throat until she was tasting her, pulling her flesh past her teeth so that some part of her - any part of her - was inside her.

Beneath her, Ann whimpered, but it was not one of pain or fear or sadness. With that gentle whine, she was begging, and Anne could do naught else but acquiesce to her every desire. She kissed her harder, capturing pulsing samples of flesh up the length of her neck until she was latched upon the soft, vulnerable underside of her jaw, and she could feel Ann's body trembling upon her knee. 

Each reaction, equally subtle and equally apparent, filled Anne's senses, a sudden flood that overcame her. In Ann's absence, she'd grown achingly dry and barren no matter how she'd tried to deny it. Arched above her, tears beginning in her throat, she realized her stubborn pride had yielded little more than a self-destructive heartache. She had denied herself what she had truly wanted for all those lonely nights, and it was not, nor could ever be, her own selfish pleasure.

When at last she drew back, she gazed down at her fluttering lids and the color high on her cheeks. She was her little Ann once more, and it was as it had always been - one second cold and frightened, the next passionate and eager. She was flighty and nervous, insipid and fearful, yet she was hers. For every irritating flaw there was a drop of sweetness, and she was suddenly certain that she could take the bitterness as long as it was chased with this, a spoonful of honey upon her tongue.

Her gaze danced lower across her parted, trembling lips and the flushed, bruised marks she'd made upon Ann's fragile flesh, an indelible ornament of desire that would linger long past this moment of reunification and desire. She lifted one hand, her fingers far more steady than they had been in weeks, and touched the lingering swatches of saliva above the bursts of deepening red. She felt Ann quiver, her thready exhales unsteady although her eyes were wide, her pupils pulsing with desire. 

With the taste of her flesh on her lips and passion kindling in her loins, she dragged her thumb over Ann’s jaw to the parting of her quivering lips. She pressed her mouth open with a slow stroke across her lower lip, and Ann complied, the warmth of her breath cascading over her fingers and knuckles. 

"I'm going to have you." She whispered huskily, gazing into Ann’s wide, wondrous gaze. "Again and again…Until you remember. You are mine. You are  _ my _ wife."

Ann's fingers clenched tight around Anne's shirt sleeves, and her breath hitched, her lids fluttering sharply at Anne's brusque, uncompromising tone.

Anne stared into her eyes for only another moment before the desire rolled over her entirely and she pressed her into the mattress. Their disjointed, feverish exhales clashed in hot, hazy blasts before Anne caught her lips in a hard kiss, sealing her intentions in bruised flesh and desire.

Beneath her, Ann moaned and arched her mouth falling open to the urgent press of her tongue. She needed no further of omens of Ann's desire aside from this wanton stretch of her lips, and she plunged her hand downwards. She clutched her thigh, and Ann's flesh was hot against her palm through the thin layer of the chemise, almost as hot as her tongue just past her teeth. 

She felt herself clinch tight as the strings of desire wound themselves through her and tugged with insistent pressure. She groaned a raspy tone, her fingers squeezing against Ann's thigh. She caught the hem of her chemise and fisted the cotton in her perspiring palm as she rocked into her. 

Beneath her, Ann arched her jaw upwards, and pressed her tongue inside Anne's mouth in a bold, ardent display of desire. It was the simplest of challenges, yet Anne needed little reason to exert her dominance and no doubt that it was exactly what Ann was begging for. 

With desire stampeding her senses, she wrenched the cloth from between them, and her knuckles clashed with Ann's in the upward motion as Ann desperately pushed her hand down to grab her wrist. She was panting, the high, raspy breaths intertwined with mewling whines as their fingers tangled together. Without faltering or delay, Anne seized her wrist and pressed it to the mattress next to her, breathing a raspy command for her compliance against her trembling lips. Ann’s body lapsed at once beneath her though she quaked and whimpered still, and as Anne lifted her head to gaze into her eyes, she found them wide, desperate, and watering with desire. 

She stroked her thumb against her perspiring temple, and murmured, “Shh, my love…”

Ann moaned, and turned her face into Anne’s body with halting whisper, “I… I just want…”

“I know.” Anne whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead, tasting the sharp tang of her sweat against her curling hairline. “I know…”

Pressing her fingers into her hair, she smoothed her palm down the trembling softness of her belly, felt her quiver with each sensation until the velvet warmth of Ann's thighs surrounded her hand. 

“Open.” She ordered, huskily. 

Ann’s breath shuddered, and she complied without question, her creamy thighs lapsing towards the mattress until she was displayed before her. 

“Good.” Anne whispered, her own voice scarcely heard above racing of her heart.

Her fingers rode the swell of her mound, and then she was enclosing her in her palm, feeling the ardent heat and moisture that dripped from her like dew from a flower. 

"Oh…" She heard Ann exhale the dazed admission, and there was a thunder in her ears, her blood singing unfettered, raucous desire.

She drew her fingers upwards, parting her petal soft folds until she was sinking into her. She was trembling yet compliant, her body yearning for fulfillment. In these long, unbearable days, Anne had not been alone in her suffering.

Pressing her mouth into Ann’s hair, she groaned softly as her hand met little resistance, and soon she was enclosed in the burning heat of her desire. She settled her hand there against her, two fingers buried inside her, and wanted to scream aloud, for the pleasure that it brought her was so great. Those strings of desire inside her cinched tighter, and her throat closed over her moans as she strove to maintain her control. She breathed heavily into her Ann’s hair, grappling with every tiny sensation that Ann’s body afforded her until the wave had passed, and she heard again Ann’s voice whining for her.

“Anne… Anne, please…”

She lifted her head, and felt a blush upon her cheeks that she didn’t bother to hide as she gazed down at her. Her breath was halting and rushed as Ann stared back at her, her clear blue eyes, flushed cheeks, and parted lips a perfect picture of angelic pleasure.

_ God, I’ve missed you… _

With a groan, she crushed her mouth to Ann’s once more, kissing her hard and fast before she rose above her. Pulling Ann’s leg over her lap, she positioned herself between her legs and tugged her close. Ann was panting, her hips rolling into Anne’s hand by the time she purposefully thrust her fingers into her. 

“Oh!!” Ann cried out, her fingers scrambling across the sheets, her body arching in half nude splendor. 

Anne’s gaze tracked across the rose colored bruises along her neck, to the chemise bunched around her waist, down to the very center of her. Here, immeasurable pleasure caught her again, for she was inside her, claiming her,  _ having  _ her as she had promised. Little else mattered, not even the strife and conflict which had brought them here. Ann was hers, and hers alone.

She watched her rise and fall to the rhythm of her hand, awestruck at all points by her cherubic expression of pleasure, by the divinity of her desire. If God ordered all things as she so believed, then he had certainly ordered this, to love and protect the woman in her bed, and she was nothing if not a faithful servant of the Almighty.

Even as Ann sobbed at the peak of their union, she felt she had not applied herself dutifully enough, and so began again until her wife was spent and trembling beneath her, choking out that she was fragile and could take no more. Then, at last, Anne slipped down beside her and took her in her arms, holding her until the tremors had passed, those of fear and of pleasure. 

“Death cannot take you from me.” She murmured softly in her ear. “Nor I from you. You are mine, Ann… forever…”

Ann replied in only a quivering breath, her small hands holding tighter to her. 

_ She may not yet understand.  _ Anne pondered as her gaze wandered towards the window.  _ But perhaps with time....  _

Beyond the pane, the field had regained their glory. The sun was touching every piece of grain and gravel of Shibden, and her courage had returned. 

It was their first kiss since that dreadful evening upon which she’d wondered if her wife loved her still at all, and Ann had agonizingly thought the same, and it was the first morning that she felt some thread of hope run through her again at last. 

How very wrong they had been, she thought, how very misled by unfortunate insecurities and lapses of faith to believe that anything but this could ever pass between them. 

* * *

The ice of the previous evening had melted away, and the late afternoon sun bathed the two visitors in a yellow light above the mound of earth. Their hands were clasped tightly together between them, and as Anne gazed down at her aunt’s headstone, she imagined that the elderly woman would be smiling from above. 

“She always liked you.” Anne murmured, squeezing her fingers around Ann’s.

For a moment Ann did not reply, and Anne glanced over at her. The other woman’s expression was concentrated upon the headstone, her brows and mouth tight.

“What’s wrong?”

“I feel like I’ve abandoned her.” Ann whispered after a second’s hesitation.

She glanced over at Anne, her eyes watery with regret. 

“You didn’t.” Anne assured her softly, reaching over to close both hands around Ann’s.

If Ann's confession proved anything at all, in fact, it was that the poor girl had thought of little else during their harrowing days of separation, and Anne had no intention to punish her further than her self-inflicted guilt had already done. 

“I shan’t let you be so kind.” Ann insisted despite Anne's gentle tone, closing her eyes over burgeoning tears. “I am sorry, Anne.”

“I know, dear." Anne murmured. "But all is set right, and I would only wish you to know there's nothing more to fear."

Ann swallowed back tears, quickly dashing away the ones that had fled down her cheeks. 

“I felt I must come here to tell her that… and you.” Ann added at last, her voice trembling. “My faith lacks when compared to your own.”

“I refuse to believe that.” Anne insisted, pulling her closer, though for the sake of their public environment she begrudgingly did not embrace her. 

They stood quietly together for a moment, their foreheads inclined towards each other until Ann sniffed.

"What shall I do?"

"What do mean?"

"Well...y-you had mentioned…" Ann's tone dropped to hesitant whisper. " _ Consequences,  _ and well, I-"

"Oh, Ann…" Anne murmured, glancing down at their clasped hands with a frown. "I said that in a moment of anger, and one of fear."

"Fear?" 

"Yes." Anne admitted with a sigh, rubbing her thumb across the back of Ann's hand. "I thought perhaps with the proper motivation I could convince you to return, and I would not suffer the fate of being without you."

Silence met her admission, and she glanced up at last. Though she was loathe to appear in any way weak to her wife, she felt that their miscommunication had cost them enough for one week. When her eyes met Ann's, her wife seemed surprised by her words. Her gaze tracked across the graveyard, her lips parted as though to speak. 

"Ann, are you all right?" Anne asked, patting her hand.

"Yes, I … I thought you were quite serious." Ann breathed at last, glancing over at her with wide eyes. 

"Well…" Anne murmured, embarrassment prodding at her. 

"I was thoroughly frightened." Ann continued, her voice high and trembling though equally chiding. "It's not often you say things you do not mean, Anne."

"Perhaps I meant it at the time." She conceded with a shake of her head. "But I'm certain that any such measures would be far beyond the boundaries of necessity."

"Oh…" 

"Only if I'm certain, however, that-"

She'd begun with a tone of certainty, but the thoughts of enduring another such event struck the words from her tongue. She gazed down at their intertwined fingers, and squeezed them tighter.

"If what?" Ann pressed at last.

"That this will never happen again…" Anne finished softly, glancing up to meet Ann's wide, expectant gaze.

"Oh.." Ann repeated, her voice barely audible as her own gaze dipped towards their clasped hands.

"It won't ...will it?" Anne pressed, her heart thrumming anxiously in her chest.

Ann bit at her lower lip, and when she glanced back up at Anne, her eyes were full of glistening tears.

"I'm still afraid." She admitted, her voice quaking with emotion. "I fear Death and all His comrades, both in this life and the next, but when I am with you… God grants me peace, and I want that peace as long as He shall grant you and I the mercy to remain on this Earth."

Her voice ended in a gentle sob, and ignoring the open nature of the courtyard, she pressed her face into Anne's neck. 

"Oh, Ann." Anne murmured, cradling the back of her head as tears rose to her own eyes. 

She watched each corner of the courtyard through glittering tears, and rocked Ann's small, trembling frame until at last she quieted. 

Pulling back, she touched Ann's chin and aligned their watery gazes. 

"There, hmm…" She murmured, stroking her thumb beneath Ann's eye to catch her falling tears. "He may be the Almighty, but He's going to have a hell of a time taking me from you."

A smile trembled to life on Ann's mouth, and Anne offered her one in return as she smoothed the last of her tears away. 

Then, ensuring there were no other eyes upon them but God's, she pressed her mouth to Ann's, and swore a sacred vow in her heart, one of commitment and responsibility. She would not speak it aloud nor would she write it in her journal, for it was an oath between husband and wife and God; and their love was far too holy and far too precious for any mortal man's eyes. It was timeless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to follow me on my socials @dykeofhalifax on Tumblr and Twitter! :)


End file.
